‘Kingpin’ formed in the summer of 1998 when: Sim Meerseman (guitar; also ‘Spirit Of Youth’), ‘Vinnie’ Vincent Merveillie (drums; singer of ‘Spirit Of Youth), Clovis ‘Vez’ Segers (bass; ‘Natural Order’, ‘Congress’) & Pedro Fioen (guitar, ex ‘Spineless’) started jamming. Joost Noyelle (‘Congress’/ ‘Liar) joined the band, doing vocals. They played “groovy and catchy New York HC” (references to ‘Cro-Mags’, ‘Leeway’, etc.). In 2000 they recorded a 5-song demo. Their first gig was at the GoodLife Fest in July 2000. They also played at the IeperFest in 2001. Hans Verbeke released the Bad Habits Die Hard 10” on his label Pyrorex (2002).

‘187’ (or One Eight Seven; from Ingelmunster / Meulebeke) played “deathcore”. Kathy Verhelle (vocals; later replaced by a guy called Nico), Steve Vanhoutte (bass; later vocals for ‘All My Sins’), Wesley Gielen (drums), Steven De Backer (guitar) & ‘Rumme’ Rumminick Vanluchene (guitar). Some of their tracks were recorded live at the Animal Truth Benefit Festival in Eeklo (98-02-22). They did a demo in 1999. Some of them are currently still active in ‘Rock Stovrie’, a (hard) rock cover band, quite popular in Flanders. Kathy & ‘Lenny’ Wouter Cael (‘Sektor’) had a project going called ‘Edge Of Life’ for which they used a drum-computer. Kathy’s brother Geoffrey Verhelle (vocalist of ‘Retaliate’) was also involved.

‘Outcast’ (from Gullegem, the Kortrijk area) started out as “a heavy NY-styled mosh-band”. Later on they took a different singer and played death-metal; also dubbed as “deathcore” or “tuff guy hardcore death-metal mosh” (They “used to be an all straight-edge band”.). They played the V.V. already on 98-04-26. Around this time the people in the band were Tim Vanglabeke & Wesley Bral (guitar), Nick Vanglabeke (drums), Nico Degroote (bass) and ‘Gerre’ (vocals; quit halfway ’99; replaced by Pieter Vanham and Gerrit Van Horebeek who sang for the band briefly). They featured on a 3-way split, entitled Sweets For My Sweet: Chapter I (that was released on Lowlife recs in 2000). Their style “changed from NYHC to more death-metal influenced grind”.

‘Kalashnikov’ was a “H8000 metalcore” band from Diksmuide. They had played at the V.V. before (99-11-27). Thijs Plovie played guitar, Dave Willaert was the bassist, Tom Verheecke sang and Bart Gouwy hit the drums.

No idea about ‘Legacy’…

Brob

‘Legacy’ [“Göteburg influenced metalcore”] were the band of mates of Thomas Allegaert; from Ledegem I believe…

Nico Sinnaeve, ‘Retaliate’ drummer

We played the V.V. a few times with ‘Outcast’ (in the barn – with a striptease – and in the pub). Also with ‘Whatever It Takes’ later on. And I set up a few gigs myself aswell.

Pieter Vanham, ‘Outcast’

We still have a video of us playing here… I remember that our vocalist at the time (Nico) had to perform a small bodyslam on a totally pissed guy (a Vort’n Vis regular) that was constantly annoying – wanted to grab the mike and that sort of stuff. A bit of a sad story. I believe he died shortly after…

Our first line-up was with Nico Degroote on bass (who later also played for ‘Whatever It Takes’). We switched vocalist and bassists a couple of times, also had a few second guitarists. Nico, Nick and myself were already doing things in ‘95 but the name ‘Outcast’ (We wanted to sound different from the H8000 bands.) came into existence in ‘97 when Nick bought his drumkit (before he was hitting pots & pans), then we started doing shows. We were the first to play slow beatdown in West-Flanders; because of the evolution of Nick’s drum-style we sounded more and more extreme, and the speed went up, the breakdowns stayed. We’ve never been an outspokenly SxE band – we wanted to be different from the rest of the scene – but we were for a while and then SoberMind wanted to release our material. All of a sudden there were Xs next to our name (not what we’d planned). Nico wrote some lyrics and one was about SxE but we’ve never been militant about it. But we’ve always been veggie.

Our first V.V. show was in ’97 (NOT 97-06-27), upstairs in the rehearsal-room with ‘D.S.A.’, ‘Spineless’ & ‘Firsetone’ – the complete Kortrijk ‘chapter’. I believe it was a Sunday in October ’97 for the birthday of ‘D.S.A.’s Freddy & Sientje; shortly after we became good friends with them (we did a show in Gullegem together)… We did a first demo in ’97, for Esophagus recs (Sven ‘Aborted’ [De Caluwe]). The second was is ’99 (who was planned to be released on SoberMind). Then Gerrit left and we got another singer (Nico Ruysbergh), what made us sound even more extreme. After we did that thing on Lowlife (2000) everybody but myself & Nick quit. Enter Pieter and Gerrit Van Horebeek. They both sounded good so we couldn’t choose. That’s when we did that ‘striptease’ show and after that Gerrit Van Hoorebeek left…

Interesting perhaps: the band ‘Retaliate’ from Ieper is named after our demo Total Retaliation…

Tim Vanglabeke, ‘Outcast’

About a year after our first appearance we played at the Vort’n Vis again. During our performance ‘Lorre’ set the place on fire and at one timepoint there were so many people on stage that we ended up playing in front of the stage.

The VV notes mention that night the bar was manned by Frederik Plets & Nick Rebry (‘Retaliate’ guitarists) and Davy Bauwen… The profits went to Solar recs.

‘Edgecrusher’ was a band that rehearsed in the Vort’n Vis. Their vocalist was Davy Bauwen, a V.V. ‘shitworker’ (volunteer) that organised quite a few gigs there. They wrote something in the guestbook on 2000-04-22 so this one here might not’ve been there first one… They played “melodic death-metal”. Besides Davy, there was Isaac Delahaye (guitar; also singer in ‘Panopticum’), Jo Decaesteker (guitar), Nico ‘Sientje’ Sinnaeve (drums; replaced by Arian Van Weesenbeek), Frederik ‘Freddy’ Vanhee (bass; replaced by Thijs Lanoye). ‘Freddy’ & ‘Sientje were both ex ‘D.S.A.’ and also played in ‘Retaliate’. The first ‘Edgecrusher’ demo Damnatio Memoriae (recorded by Michael ‘Link’ Maes) was available that year and their second demo Impressions Of Mankind (2002), was with Michael ‘Link’ Maes on drums.

‘Forcible’ (also previously in the guestbook on 2000-07-26) was a local thrash-metal band. The above-mentioned Isaac Delahaye (a student at the Rotterdam conservatorium) was also in this band. Besides him there was Matthias Baillieuil (bass/vocals), Michiel Cauwelier (drums) and Phil (guitar). Isaac later played for the Dutch death-metal band ‘God Dethroned’ (and a few others). They did a demo (Imprisoned Redemption of Disorder) in ’98.

‘Forcible’

‘Link’; another local band with V.V. shitworkers: Inge Cappoen & her partner Michael Maes (vocals & guitar). They played many times since they started around ‘97… I think bassist Greg ‘Briko’ and drummer ‘Juju’ Julien De Jonckheere had left by then. Their 1st CD The Last Sacrifice was recorded in 2000, with a drum-computer and Geoffrey Geeraert on bass. Geoffrey & drummer Michiel (both in ‘Abrogate’) had joined the band beginning 2000 but the latter already left after a few months. The band continued with a drum-computer for a few years… (Read Michael’s ‘history-lesson’: 97-09-12)

‘Link’ (The Last Sacrifice line-up)

Brob

Isaac joined later on. The original line-up was with ‘Sientje’, Jo and myself.

We did a pre-show at the Vort’n Vis pub in 2000, on a Thursday… The actual 2000-08-18&19&20 Ieperfest was in a school-yard. I just remember my band (‘Surge Of Fury’) and ‘Killed In Action’ played, I don’t recall who else played… It’s possible that ‘Retaliate’ was a that show but I can’t remember. At that time ‘Surge Of Fury’ was Emeric on drums, Dave & Sam playing guitars, John on bass and myself, ‘Tito’, doing vocals,… The line-up is different nowadays… I just remember the ‘Killed In Action’ singer’s name… Max…

‘Tito Fury’ [also played at the V.V. with the Liège band ‘Belief’ on 98-04-26]

‘Tito’

‘Surge Of Fury’ (hardcore metal from Liège) did a demo-tape in 1999…

‘Retaliate’ was a band from the Ieper area playing brutal metal-core. Members: Frederik ‘Freddy’ Vanhee (bass; ex ‘D.S.A.’), Geoffrey Verhelle (vocals), Thomas Allegaert (vocals), Nico ‘Sientje’ Sinnaeve (drums; ex ‘D.S.A.’), Nick Rebry (guitar) & Frederik Plets (guitar). They recorded a demo in 2000 and released it under the name W.A.R. in 2001, and later (2002) a split with ‘Outcast’ (DHM recs): Hate Injected. This was probably their first show here. They were also on a poster for a gig with ‘Kingpin’ at the V.V. on 2000-09-16 (on which they were labeled “NY HC”). The line-up changed a great deal later on…

‘Retaliate’

People of ‘Killed In Action’ (from Rouen, France) apparently were later in ‘The Elektrocution’… Maxime Prieux was the singer.

‘Killed In Action’

Brob

The pics are indeed pre Ieperfest 2000 with ‘Killed In Action’, ‘Surge Of Fury’, etc. I think also ‘Striker’ played [Brob: No mention of that in the V.V. notes]…

Frederik Plets, ‘Retaliate’ guitarist

I believe we started out in 2000… In 2001 ‘Retaliate’ opened the actual festival.

Geoffrey Verhelle, ‘Retaliate’ vocalist

The pre-fest before Ieperfest 2000 was organised by me and ‘Lorre’ [‘Striker’ vocalist].

According to the Vort’n Vis notes Frederic Driessens (local grind/death/noise fanatic; did a series of compilation-tapes under the name Possessed By Death) arranged for these bands to come to the Vort’n Vis. Practically speaking, things were organised by Davy Bauwen (‘Edgecrusher’ vocalist) – who had to go rent mikes in the local municipal youthcentre e.g. Tom Bordeaux (‘Striker’ guitarist) and some other shitworkers attended the bar…

‘Impiety’ is a black/death metal band from Singapore. They state ‘Bathory’, ‘Possessed’, ‘Morbid Angel’, ‘Venom’, etc. as their influences. On their website, one can read that they “desecrated the Vort’n Vis with Dutch desecrators ‘Pentacle’ and French BM supremacist ‘Celestia’!”: Skullfucking Euro Armageddon Tour 2000 => 27 May – Vort’n Vis HellPub, Ieper, Belgium. Frontbeast ‘Shyaithan’ (Muhammad Ariffeen Deen) (bass/vocals) is the constant factor. On the CD Skullfucking Armageddon, recorded spring ’99, the guitarist was ‘Fyraun’ and the drummer ‘Dajjal’. Judging from the photos, they had a seperate vocalist here…

‘Pentacle’ play black/death metal from Bladel (near Eindhoven, The Netherlands) recorded their album …Rides The Moonstorm in April ’98 with Wannes Gubbels (bass/vocals), Marc Nelissen (drums) & Mike Verhoeven (guitar).

From the www… >>The Vort’n Vis Festival is one of the biggest underground fests in Europe and can be found in Ieper. It exists a long time already, I think from the eighties. It used to be in the club called Vort’n Vis but since two years it has become an open-air festival at the music-school. The fest offers us a lot of styles of hardcore like old school, NYHC, emo, more metal stuff; and combines big names with lesser known names. The big names this year were Ensign, Good Clean Fun, Stigmata, Grade and As Friends Rust. Convinced, Walls Of Jericho, Out For Blood and Shai Hulud were bands listed on the bill but who couldn’t show up in the end, pity… The weather on this year’s fest really sucked, lotsa rain… But that couldn’t stop the fun. The atmosphere on the fest was good but not as good as last years. There were no fights or something but some people seemed to enjoy fucking things up at the camping. A lot of people showed up. They told me almost 1.500 people on Friday, about 1.700 on Saturday and the same for Sunday. Also a lot of people decided to stay on the camping.<< (author unknown)

Programme (full posts with photos of some bands playing are planned…):

‘Abstain’ was a grindcore band from Cerritos, California. They had toured Europe already in 1997… Bryan MacNamara (guitar) & (Guy) Jay Farihi (drums & vocals). Rob M played bass on the records. They brought “growling vocals, distorted guitars and blasting drums” and had quite afew 7”s out (e.g. Defy on Profane Existence Far East, and a split with ‘Agathocles’ on Burt Beyens’ label Uxicon recs). In 2000 Paolo Petralia (SOA recs) released the World Full Of Zombies album, so they toured with his band ‘Comrades’… Because ‘Abstain’ had problems with their tour-bus (the one of ‘Comrades’) and had to pay extra train-fares, the Belgian bands donated their amends to the Americans. The Americans spent the night in the Ieper ‘Jeugdstadion’ (camping-site)…

‘Firestone’ was an H8000 metalcore band from the Kortrijk area. They had already performed on the 1996 Next Generation Festival, in the pub (97-06-27), the 1998 Vort’n Vis Hardcore Festival and also played on the Ieperfest this year. Early on the band consisted of Thomas Desimpelaere who sang, then Alexander Baert (who played drums at first), than Pieter-Jan ‘PJ’ (his first show was 97-10-04) and then Iris Walgraeve. Mathieu Storms drummed (after Alex). After him Vincent Tetaert played the drums. In the beginning Matthias Desimpelaere played guitar but later on Ward Dufraimont (also ‘Liar’) replaced him. Diederik Claes (bass) and Lennart Bossu (guitar; also ‘Liar’, later ‘Janez Detd’, ‘AmenRa’) seemed to have been the only constant members. Recordings of them playing at the Animal Truth Benefit Festival at De Warande, Kuurne (97-10-04) were released as a split-tape with ‘Spineless’. August 1996 they recorded for their Dark Fantasies demo. Sober Mind recs released an EP entitled Element in ’98 and they did an LP Aim For A New Tomorrow on Genet recs in 2000 (with Iris on vocals).

‘Lifecycle’ were locals and played here many times… From the post of their gig on 99-10-31 the reader might remember the core of the band was singer Sofie Vantomme and guitarists Karel Deweerdt & Steve Noyelle (guitar). Steve explained that they had a few switches on bass (Jurgen Degryse – Maarten Kinet – Peter Leuwers – Céline Delqueux – Jelle Dobbelaere) and drums (Jan Verhelst – Vincent Tetaert – Tim Jult).

Brob

I believe the rhythm-section here was Peter on bass and Vincent on drums…

Karel Deweerdt, ‘Lifecycle’

I played bass for ‘Lifecycle’ here. I believe I did from ‘99 to 2000 but I was only 16 then and remember very little. It was a fun time but as I grew older, I discovered another world outside HC & sXe. I quite liked ‘messing about’ at gigs, something I would still wanna do. I rarely listen to real hardcore music but solid rock is on daily!

Peter Leuwers

‘Abstain’ was just Jay and me back then. I remember we played with ‘Agathocles’ and a bunch of other bands but it’s difficult to remember specific shows/venues; after touring for like 6 weeks everything turns into a big blur… So many names/faces/venues, it’s difficult to keep track of everything. I’m stoked about the picture in the journal (that is Jay’s writing there)…

Bryan MacNamara

I didn’t play that show (someone in my family had died). Lennart was the only guitarist there. I had just joined ‘Firestone’ the month before; this would’ve been my second or third performance…